W. H. Pugmire has been writing Lovecraftian weird fiction since the early 1970s. He was lucky, during a three week tour of New England and New York in 2007, to visit the churchyard mentioned in his story, which was also visited by H. P. Lovecraft and inspired the writing of ‘The Hound.’ Pugmire has written for many anthologies, and his books include THE TANGLED MUSE, UNCOMMON PLACES, BOHEMIANS OF SESQUA VALLEY, and THE STRANGE DARK ONE.

Pete Rawlik has been reading and collecting weird books and literature since the Seventies and ran a bookstore dedicated to the genre for twenty years. In 2011 gave it all up to pursue writing Lovecraftian fiction. His first novel Reanimators was published in 2013, the sequel The Weird Company was released in 2014. He lives in South Florida where he studies Everglades ecology and tries to keep three children from being eaten by crocodiles. His wife has recently assured the public that his collection of Lovecraftiana poses no public health threat.

Contribution:
Introduction to THESE BLACK WINGED ONES
Foreword to DARK TALES FROM ELDER REGIONS: NEW YORK

Chris’s initial interest in the paranormal began not from an experience, but from films and pages of fiction. As a kid watching films like The Exorcist, Poltergeist and Ghostbusters was the catalyst, an adult writing his own supernatural stories and screenplays, he wondered if there was any truth to be found regarding the existence of paranormal activity.
He began actively investigating the paranormal in 2002, and with his companions Brian J Cano and Greg Cusick, they began to document their explorations and investigations, releasing a series of documentaries titled “SCARED!” It wasn’t until 2009. on an investigation at The Grand Midway Hotel in Windber, PA, that Chris found what he had been searching for. Not only did he get his paranormal experience, some impressive evidence as well. Because of his experience Chris was also compelled to reevaluate his beliefs.
In 2013 he had another life changing encounter with the spirit of a beloved pet, which caused him and his wife, Catherine, to begin volunteering with Staten Island Hope Animal Rescue. Today, Chris has recently accepted the role as a Director in the organization. He dedicates much of his free time continuing to save cats from euthanasia at NYC Animal Control Centers.

John Zaffis has over forty years of experience studying and investigating the paranormal. Zaffis spent his first years studying under his uncle and aunt Ed and Lorraine Warren, both demonologists. Mr Zaffis starred in the SyFy paranormal reality TV show, Haunted Collector, and runs the Paranormal and Demonology Research Society of New England, which he founded in 1998.Click here to read more Zaffis and his Museum

Contribution: Interview with Christopher MancusoForming bonds with pets that transcend into the afterlife Tails from the Other Side: Pets and the Paranormal

Haunted Collector’s Brian J Cano

Brian J. Cano
On Haunted Collector, Brian is the Tech Specialist, responsible for the implementation and use of all the gadgets and gear. Best known for mixing old and new techniques of investigating, he often finds himself doing the physical tasks, such as crawling under houses and up into attics. He also serves as second in command of the team and helps manage the deployment of the crew itself. Ultimately, his goal as an investigator is to measure, quantify and get empirical evidence to support the claims of paranormal activity reported while maintaining his skeptical edge.
Within SCARED! his role is that of a parapsychologist; the Scientist. His belief is that the universe, in all its diversity and complexity, is a system that operates within a set of laws and rules, even if we don’t understand them yet. This mindset allows him to accept the unknown more readily and attempt to bridge the gap between Science and Faith.
In addition to Haunted Collector and SCARED!, Brian can be found touring the country appearing at paranormal events as well as lecturing on the college circuit during the Fall. As an attempt to bring fans behind-the-scenes of Haunted Collector, he started a blog revealing the bits that got cut as well as all the humorous moments and minutia. Brian’s work has been praised in several publications, including TAPS Paramagazine and Haunted Times Magazine. Various episodes of SCARED! have won awards at several film festivals, most recently, “Haunted Snug Harbor” which won Best Cinematography at the 2013 Macabre Faire Film Festival.
Read More of Brian’s Work by visiting NeverStopSearching.com

Contribution:His Name was Beadie, Tails from the Other Side: Pets and the ParanormalAfterword, Dark Tales from Elder Regions: New York

Jared Lobdell turned 21 the day C. S. Lewis turned 60. That led to a correspondence between them, and after Lewis’s death with Tolkien, but Dr. Lobdell had already read The Lord of the Rings when it first came out in 1954/5 because “Numinor” was mentioned in That Hideous Strength. He was a member of the University of Wisconsin Tolkien Society, to whom Dick West turned over the papers from Jan Finder’s First and Second Conferences on Middle Earth for publication. They were published, with Professor Tolkien’s “Notes on the Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings, in 1975 as A Tolkien Compass. He published England and Always: Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings in 1981 (reprinted with an additional chapter as The World of the Rings in 2004). His Rise of Tolkienian Fantasy came out in 2005. He contributed more than twenty pieces to the J R R Tolkien Encyclopedia (2006) and an essay to Paul Kerry’s two-volume collection on Tolkien’s Religion in 2009. Recently he has been working on studies of “the other Inklings” — notably those who came to the Inklings from “The Cave.” He holds his B.A. from Yale, where he studied under Cleanth Brooks, a 1932-33 member of “The Cave,” his M.B.A. and M.S. from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where he was a 1968 member of the University of Wisconsin Tolkien Society, with Dick West and Debbie Webster Rogesr, and his Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon. He lives in Elizabethtown PA with his wife Janie (who is fond of Hobbits) and he works at the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA). He lives in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

Rosemary Ellen Guiley is a leading expert in the metaphysical and paranormal fields, with more than 60 books published on a wide range of paranormal, spiritual, and mystical topics, including nine single-volume encyclopedias and reference works. She has worked full-time in the field since 1983. Rosemary runs her own independent publishing company, Visionary Living, Inc., and also publishes an e-newsletter, Strange Dimensions. She lectures internationally and makes numerous media appearances.Click here to read more of her work.

Contribution:Animals in the Afterlife, Tails from the Other Side: Pets and the Paranormal

Michelle Belanger is most widely recognized for her work on television’s Paranormal State, where she explored abandoned prisons and haunted houses while blindfolded and in high heels. A leading authority on psychic and supernatural topics, her non-fiction research in books like The Dictionary of Demons and The Psychic Vampire Codex has been sourced in television shows, university courses, and numerous publications around the world. She has worked as a media liaison for fringe communities in the occult and paranormal world, performed with gothic and metal bands, and designed immersive live action gaming events for companies such as Wizards of the Coast. Her thrilling paranormal fiction series launches this fall through Titan Books with Conspiracy of Angels.
Michelle resides near Cleveland, Ohio. More information on Michelle and her work can be found at www.michellebelanger.com. She is active on Twitter as @sethanikeem.

Contribution:A Different Kind of Stray, Tails From the Other Side: Pets and the Paranormal

Gregory Norris is a full time writer with some 4,000 stories, articles, books. with work regularly published in fiction anthologies and national magazines. Mr. Norris worked as a screenwriter on two episodes of Paramount’s STAR TREK: VOYAGER, and was a columnist and staff writer at Sci Fi, the official magazine of the Sci Fi Channel. Norris is the author to the guide of all-things-Sunnydale, THE Q GUIDE TO BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, his latest book, SHRUNKEN HEADS: Twenty Tiny Tales of Mystery and Terror, was released last September. Mr. Norris has contributed a tale called, “The Sixth Borough,” which illustrates a characters search for a mysterious borough of NYC.

Legendary author John Peel has written for numerous genres, Science Fiction, Horror, Fantasy and many others. Peel is the author of Doctor Who books and comic strips. Notably, he wrote the first original Doctor Who novel, Timewyrm: Genesys, to launch the Virgin New Adventures line. In the early 1990s he was commissioned by Target Books to write novelisations of several key Terry Nation Dalek stories of the 1960s after the rights were finally worked out.Contribution: “Now Departing” Dark Tales from Elder Regions: New York